ThunderSnow.us

This morning I woke up and rolled over and enjoyed the sun coming in the window… and suddenly said “Oh crap it’s 8:30 and it’s Monday!”

It woke me up, anyway.

But if you want to proofread, thats fine too. I’m applying for a UROP grant for a research project for next fall. These do not necessarily get read by people in my department, but by faculty from across the college. So, I’m trying to explain the fairly technical phenomenon I want to look at in clear and concise terms for folks who don’t have a background in this. If you want to play, take a look at the project definition and tell me if parts of it are confusing or unclear.

Fuckers.

I was filling out an ILL request, which is a long (and slightly annoying, because obviously, the library should subscribe to Every. Journal. Ever.) form, and I was slightly startled by this:

Not the question, the question makes sense. But that menu… *twitch*

Dear PSNH,

Thank you for fixing my power.

Enjoying not shivering in her apartment,
abby

Dear UROP Proposal,

I made some really good progress on you on Friday. Please keep going well. I’d love to get this grant.

Looking forward to a time when she only has to write for classes,
abby

Dear Frisbee

Thank you for rocking. After the suckitude of yesterday’s tourney, I had my doubts. But my faith is restored.

Sore but happy,
abby

I stumbled, today, upon the Prairie Muffin Manifesto. It squicks me, and I was trying to figure out why. I mean, when you subtract out the hard-core Christian stuff, they’re espousing many values that are very close to mine. Patience, living simply, working hard, not losing it when bad stuff happens, making things better in small ways. Eventually, I realized that they’re saying these are things we should do because we’re women, rather than because they’re people, and that men have an entirely different set of responsibilities.

And then there’s bits such as

2) Prairie Muffins are helpmeets to their husbands, seeking creative and practical ways to further their husbands’ callings and aid them in their dominion responsibilities.

9) Prairie Muffins do not reflect badly on their husbands by neglecting their appearance; they work with the clay God has given, molding it into an attractive package for the pleasure of their husbands.

17) Prairie Muffins place their husbands’ needs and desires above other obligations, arranging their schedules and responsibilities so that they do not neglect the one who provides for and protects them and their children.

Squick! Seriously, this just creeps me out. I mean, sure, I don’t wanna be a full-time homemaker, but the women I know who do want to don’t go into it with this “I will sacrifice my every need to my so-superior husband’s” mindset.. right?

And finally, this:

36) Prairie Muffins are happy to be girls—they rejoice in the distinctives which God sovereignly bestowed on them which make them feminine. They are also happy that their husbands are masculine, and they do not diminish that masculinity by harping on habits which emanate from the fact that boys will be boys, even when they grow up. In addition, Prairie Muffins are careful not to use their feminine, hormotional weaknesses to excuse sinful attitudes and actions, but learn to depend more and more on God’s grace and strength in the midst of any monthly trials.

Don’t get too hormotional, girls.

Good old Madame Rankins, teaching us non-Academie-approved French in junior high.

This weekend has been just the right amount of busy. That’s been consistently true of late. It makes me really happy.

Friday night, Dan and I went to see The Princess Bride at the MUB. I forget how much I love that movie. Yes, I know it’s cheesy and cheap and in some places it’s really bad, but it’s just so awesome, and so quotable.

Yesterday, Satya and I went on a quest for cookie cutters, and then made and decorated a big batch of valentines day cookies. It was a good time, and the cookies are quite good. I’d been wanting to make cookies for a while,.

Today it snowed. A bunch. The birthday party I was supposed to run this morning was rescheduled, so I got the whole day free. Dan and I and Jenn and Nathan went sledding. It was quite cold, especially with the wind (Weather Underground gave the windchill temp as -5F. Brr.)

And I’ve got about half my weekend homework done. It may actually get finished. Go me.

For about a week now our dryer has been making an odd loud noise. We mentioned it to the landlords, and last Thursday Steve the maintenance guy came by to check it out. The note he left for us said “Needs part for noise. Alright to use.” So I shrugged and continued using it, on the assumption that eventually they’d get the necessary part and come fix it.

Yesterday, Dan came to pick me up from campus, so I wouldn’t have to wait an hour for the next bus. On the way home, he mentioned that the maintenance guy had come and replaced our washer/dryer. I was (distressingly) excited at the prospect of new ones, and jokingly commented that I hoped they’d not also removed the load of laundry that had been in the wash. Dan said “Umm… I didn’t see any. I didn’t know there was any.”

Upon arriving home I checked all the plausible and some of the implausible locations for them to have stashed my laundry. In the washer, in the dryer, in one of the several laundry baskets strewn around the apartment. The load of wash (which had my favorite jeans in it) was not there.

So, last night I talked to one of the landlords, and today I talked to another. We’ll see if I have my clothes back when I get home. I want those jeans, darnit.

UPDATE: It’s back.

Last night I pulled a two-inch pile of paper out of my bookbag and began categorizing it. Most of it is not directly related to my classes (except the thirty pages of photocopied math textbook, since the bookstore didn’t have enough and I still haven’t gotten a copy (Amazon is slow like an anemone..)). Rather, it is related to all the not-strictly-classes stuff that I am doing this semester, including:

• Handouts and notes from the lab section I’m TA’ing
• Handouts, syllabus, etc from the class I’m ‘facilitating’ a study group for (a paying job!)
• Other paperwork for that study group
• Papers I’m reading for Jill’s lab
• Papers I’m reading for my own research
• Applications and other paperwork for UROP and SURF grants
• Papers I was reading by the UMinn people I might do an REU with
• Grad school stuff
• The aforementioned math book pages

The above have been sorted into a binder, conveniently labeled “Binder of Ridiculousness”. Because it really is.

I’m trying not to worry about the amount of stuff I’m committed to right now. It’s okay, now, but later in the semester when A) I have a lot more writing-type homework for my classes and B) frisbee season picks up and my weekends are sacrificed to tourneys, I’ll be busy. On the other hand, I’m a lot better at sitting down and doing stuff, rather than procrastinating forever, and at using my hour-long chunks of time in the middle of the day. Go me.

(Apparently I am the queen of ending sentences with prepositions today. It’s probably better that I get it out of my system before writing research proposals, right?)

UPDATE: I got my math book! I think it was actually delivered yesterday, but since we are lucky if we manage to pick up mail twice a week, it lingered. If Amazon had, say, informed me that they had shipped this item, I would’ve checked and gotten it yesterday. Sigh.